Most of us have experimented with using artificial intelligence (AI) to create sales emails. While AI can generate impressive results, it doesn’t always deliver perfectly crafted emails. Even after repeatedly asking tools like ChatGPT or Gemini to refine the content, you might still end up with subpar sales emails.
The root cause? Often, it comes down to the quality of your AI email prompts. Poorly constructed prompts can lead to undesirable output, no matter how advanced the AI tool is. In other words, AI is an amazing tool, but it requires on-target AI email prompts for it to deliver its best results.
In this AI email guide, we’ll show you a few best practices on how to write great sales emails using AI, maximizing the impact of AI in your email marketing strategies.
The Advantages and Disadvantages of Using AI for Email Marketing Creation
While AI is a helpful resource, there are important upsides and downsides you’ll want to be aware of when using it to craft sales emails. Let’s take a look at a few of them.
Pros of Using AI Email Assistants
- Content generation: no more wondering what you should say. Your assistant will give you a never-ending supply of ideas you can use for introductions, follow-up, and nurturing. You can even create multiple sales email templates for various sales and marketing purposes, ready to be used whenever you need them.
- 24/7 availability: an AI email assistant can craft responses to customers whenever you need them.
- Huge time savings: writing an email may take time, but that’s nothing compared to the time you lose in aggregate. Calculate your before and after. The amount of time you’ve spent trying to write emails over the last year and the amount you’ve saved afterward.
- Tone matching: with this AI sales automation tool, you can automatically create a personalized sales email by matching the tone on your sales emails on a case-by-case basis. Formal tones are used for new clients who are sticklers for professionalism, semi-casual for well-known clients, and casual for long-term clients and friends.
- Automated error correction: with your AI email assistant, you will catch and correct errors automatically. Poor grammar will be a thing of the past; your assistant catches all the major errors, leaving you free to clean things up with a once-over.
- Better email administration: forgotten emails will be a thing of the past. Your AI email assistant will flag all messages that need your attention and encourage you to reply within the predetermined time constraints you’ve set.
Cons of Using AI Email Assistants
- An over-reliance on AI: as you depend on your AI email assistant, you’ll become increasingly dependent on it for all things administrative (and why wouldn’t you be). However, this outcome could be a bad thing if it means your skills begin to atrophy.
- Can lead to impersonal communication: an overreliance on AI email assistants means your messages are much more likely to become impersonal. That’s bad if your email messages begin to lose your personal touch or a general sense of warmth.
- Requires regular adjustments: the data your AI email assistant is trained on is constantly evolving. As a result, regular updates, adjustments, and improvements are needed to maintain effectiveness. Without this constant maintenance, model drift will become a problem, and AI performance will begin to decline.
- Heavily dependent on infrastructure: your AI email assistant is pretty limited without internet access. It may not perform as expected if there are technical issues, downtime, or outages.
Now, is having an AI assistant useful or worthwhile? If you’re looking for a set-and-forget option that doesn’t require effort, it’s not worth it. The outcome will be a disaster.
On the other hand, AI works beautifully if you want to use the thoughtful AI-generated email strategies I’m about to share. This could be a fit if you want to use AI to help you manage a growing workload.
Let’s look at some example prompts you can use to write sales emails.
How to Write Converting Sales Emails with AI Prompts
Imagine having a friend who desperately needs our help. “Quick, get me the thing”—their mind goes blank. “What thing?!” we yell back in a panic. Frustrated, they yell, “Oh come on, you know, the thing leaning on the other side of the other thing.” They shake their hands in frustration, “THE THING!”
The problem isn’t AI; it’s us.
We’ve always had issues with generic, impersonal, and spammy sales messages. We’re asking an AI that’s not as smart as us to do the impossible and read our intent. Bad AI prompts do that. Great AI prompts tell our AI email assistant exactly what it needs to know, ensuring that we get what we need.
- Bad AI prompts are generic. They fail to provide the AI with any sort of meaningful data that can be used to create a compelling message. Of course the results are bad!
- The Best AI prompts follow a formula. These prompts are specific, offer context, set constraints, and outline requirements. They are guardrails that keep the AI assistant on track and help you refine your requests. These requests produce fantastic results you can work with!
Let’s look at several example prompts you can reference to get great sales email templates from your AI email assistant.
Cold Outreach Sales Email Template 1
Most sales reps are using AI email assistants for cold outreach in some form. That’s not a bad idea—what is a bad idea is approaching this with a volume mindset. Cold outreach isn’t a numbers game. It seems like it is, but sending the same generic message to thousands isn’t as effective as crafting a personalized, highly relevant message for 150 people.
| Bad Prompt | Better Prompt | Best Prompt |
| Write a cold outreach email for retail and ecommerce companies | Write an 80-word cold outreach sales email pitching our shipping services to retain storefronts. | Write an 80-word cold outreach sales email pitching our shipping services to email to [Name]. He’s the [Title] at [Company]. Start the email referencing the FedEx and UPS rate increase of 2025. Also reference their commitment to keeping prices low. Share the biggest negative impact on their retail business. |
Here are the results from our bad example.
Source: ChatGPT
See how wordy this bad example is? It’s heavy on content but light on value. Most people spam their prospects’ inboxes with this, and it’s no good.
Here are the results from our best example.
Source: ChatGPT
We can make some improvements here, but there’s a lot of good happening:
- We’re showing prospects that we understand their business
- We’re aware of some costly changes on the horizon
- We have a solution to address the problems they’re currently facing.
We could adapt this email to match our customers’ tone and voice if we want to improve. We can also focus on more personal details (e.g., referencing company posts on X, mining their reviews for customer complaints, etc.).
There’s always a way to add value.
Want to improve your cold-calling outreach skills? Our extensive guide to cold calling can help.
Welcome Messages Sales Email Template
In this particular AI sales email example, we’re selling financial services. We want to address our client’s concerns but do it in a way that addresses the nuance of their situation.
| Bad Prompt | Better Prompt | Best Prompt |
| Write a short welcome email for new clients. | Write a concise welcome email to [Name]. He’s the [Title] at [Company], and I want to pitch our [Service] services to him. | Write a two-paragraph (less than 80 words) welcome email to [Name]. He’s the [Title] at [Company], and I want to pitch our [Financial Product]. He’s expressed interest, but he mentioned that he has the following concerns: [short list of concerns] |
Our first prompt was generic; the second was specific. What about the best option? It was specific, gave context, set constraints, and outlined requirements. Most of the time, you’ll want to customize the ai-generated email to strike the right tone.
Here are the results from our bad prompt.
Source: ChatGPT
Now, let’s take a look at our best prompt.
Source: ChatGPT
Can you see the difference?
Suppose you know specifics about your client’s situation. For example, in our last call, you mentioned that you had a limited timetable and wanted to set this up in the next six weeks.
I mentioned that you should always be prepared to do a little house cleaning. Although this is a welcome email, there’s no welcome present. We’re missing some of the words, phrases, and figures of speech that convey warmth. It’s not completely cold, but it is very machine-like.
As always, make the necessary changes and customizations before sending your message.
Need more welcome email templates? Steal our best sales introduction email templates.
Follow-up Sales Email Template
This detail is one of the hardest parts of selling. It’s not mentally difficult; it’s emotionally difficult.
We’re trying to follow up with prospects because we know it leads to more sales. That said, we—experienced salespeople—know how to read leads’ reactions. We have a pretty good sense of when prospects are interested and when they’re not. Unfortunately, that’s not good enough for our manager, though.
We know our manager will ask if we got an explicit yes or no from our prospects. We also know that customers aren’t always as direct or upfront as they should be. It’s a challenge; we need to follow up with leads, but we don’t always know what to say or how to start the conversation. Sometimes, it’s easier to say nothing.
Let’s take a look at our options.
| Bad Prompt | Better Prompt | Best Prompt |
| Give me a quick four-sentence follow-up message I can send to prospects. | Write a follow-up email message to [Name]. He said he would get back in touch in two weeks. | Write a two-paragraph (less than 80 words) follow-up sales email to [Name] at [Company]. His company is struggling with [Problem]. Reference the recent [Event] and reference the impact it will have on [Metric]. Gently reference his limited timeframe to make a decision. |
First, the bad AI prompt
Source: ChatGPT
Now, let’s look at our best prompt.
Source: ChatGPT
Can you feel the sense of urgency?
John, our prospect, is going to feel the pressure. He needs to do something. This problem isn’t imaginary. We’re not pushing him to do this so we can make a quick buck (include a link in your message for third-party validation). It’s a problem that he has to face and fast.
What if I can’t find these problems? No problem! Let Google tell you.
- Head over to Google News and enter a topic or keyword (i.e., oil prices).
- Make a list of all of the relevant keywords that apply.
- Copy and paste the relevant keywords into your document or text file.
- Head over to Google Alerts and enter the keywords from your list.
It’s that easy!
Set your alert volume to the amount you can handle (I’d recommend once a day). I’d also recommend creating a Gmail account specifically for this purpose. Check your inbox once a day, then use the formula I mentioned above to create an AI prompt that is ultra-relevant, personalized, and specific to your client’s circumstances.
Want to make it better? Use the data from your CRM. If you’re using a CRM with AI features—like Pipeline CRM—you can use their in-app sales automation tools to create your prompts.
Looking for more ways to write compelling follow-up emails? Our comprehensive follow-up email guide has you covered, complete with some free email templates!
Re-engage Sales Email Template
It seems like your prospects want to break up with you.
You’ve sent your leads several messages, but they haven’t responded consistently. Some have decided to ghost you, ignoring your messages completely. What do you do?
You put them into a re-engagement sequence. A re-engagement sequence is the final step for prospects.
- If you send them a series of messages and they ignore them all, you can mark them as inactive.
- If they respond sporadically, you can assign them to a sales rep for re-activation.
- If they regain interest, you move towards closing the sale.
Let’s take a look at a few AI prompts you can use.
| Bad Prompt | Better Prompt | Best Prompt |
| Write a message for prospects who haven’t responded to my sales emails. | Write a re-engagement email message to [Name]. Mention the proposal we sent to him the previous week. | Write three re-engagement emails. Each email should be two-paragraph (less than 80 words). All three emails will be addressed to [Name] at [Company]. Both the subject line and first sentence in the first email should ask: “Have you give up on this?” Both the subject line and the first sentence of the second email should say: “I don’t want to be a pest, but it seems like you’ve given up on this. Is that true?” Both the subject line and the first sentence of the third email should say: “It seems like you’re no longer interested. Is that true?” Here’s an [Incentive] if you’re open to changing your mind. |
First, the bad AI prompt.
Source: ChatGPT
Let’s look at the best prompt.
Source: ChatGPT
Did you catch the specific prompt that made our re-engagement series the best option? Our prompt followed our formula—it was specific, gave context, set constraints, and outlined requirements. Then we added the extras:
- In our first email, we asked prospects a pointed question: have you given up? [Is it you?]
- Our next email asked if we were bothering them. [Is it us?]
- Our final email asked about their interest level and offered an incentive to see if this attracted more attention. [No longer interested?]
These messages help us to identify the specifics behind our prospect’s disengagement.
Do you not like the email templates above? We have some more! Find more creative re-engagement sales email templates here.
Effective Sales Emailing Relies on the Right AI Prompts
AI-generated email strategies begin and end with you. You’ll need a formula if you’re using AI for email marketing. Here are the steps I’ve outlined in my formula:
- Use specificity
- Give AI context
- Set AI constraints
- Outline requirements
So, the next time you ask an AI email assistant to craft an email, and it comes back with bad emails, don’t get frustrated and blame this smart sales automation tool. Ask yourself: How was the quality of my email prompts?
AI is an amazing tool that requires clear direction and a precise formula to be great. The more data you can feed your AI email assistant, the better your AI prompts and sales emails will be.
Are you still juggling between your CRM and ChatGPT to create compelling sales emails? Simplify the process with Pipeline CRM’s AI email writing assistant. Our AI-powered solution is seamlessly integrated into the CRM, enabling you to craft personalized emails directly within the platform. Use the prompt button to refine your message—whether it’s to “rephrase,” “shorten,” or adjust the tone. Once you’re satisfied, set them up as email sequences. These emails will automatically be sent to your selected prospects when a specific trigger is activated, saving you time and effort while maximizing efficiency.
